Cumberland Knob & Music Center / Blue Ridge Parkway

Hiking in the Cumberland Knob Recreation Area | The Blue Ridge Music Center | Camping at Rocky Knob Recreation Center | The Blue Ridge Parkway | September 2023

We left Doughton Park and followed the detours down and around all of the construction work, but once we were on the other side, it was smooth sailing on the Parkway all points North. The morning was very overcast and foggy on some of the ridges, but that didn’t stop us from stopping at one of the roadside picnic areas the Parkway is known for. In this case, it just so happened to be the first picnic area and the place where construction on the Parkway started almost 100 years ago: Cumberland Knob, just South of the VA/NC border.

Unfortunately, just as we were getting out of the car, the rain really started to set in. We grabbed our umbrellas and rain jackets intending to still take a trail down to a creek and a potential letterbox despite the cold and wet. But Charlotte quickly abandoned that idea opting to stay in the comfort of the stone shelters. Jess allowed me to go and attempt the letterbox and do the hike though, and so I set off down into the ravine.

It was probably best that Jess and Charlotte stayed back, because the trail was pretty steep and rocky. I made it, all the more challenging by jogging down the trail. At the bottom of the ravine there was a stream with small cascades, but nothing spectacular. i eventually found the box and was left with the option to continue down the trail and loop back around or go back the way I had came. I opted to go for the loop, which in hindsight was probably the worse choice. The trail got even rockier and lost even more elevation and when the trail finally left the stream it was quite steep and took quite a bit longer to get back to Jess than I really wanted. But by that time the rain had stopped, and a thick fog had settled on the ridge. It reminded us both strongly of Hawai’i. Here’s my AllTrails recording for this hike.

We continued North along the Parkway into Virginia until we reached the Blue Ridge Music Center. We initially thought of doing a hike here, but, after talking to the Ranger, we realized: there was WiFi, a concert was about to start, and we were hungry. We found an out of the way table where we could hear the music and then gathered some lunch and our computers. Charlotte napped, we listened, we got some work done, and it was fun.

As the concert wrapped up, we packed our things and continued our way North. We made one more stop at another overlook at Groundhog Knob featuring a lookout tower. The overcast skies had moved up in elevation a ways so we could see out to some of the nearby peaks. Again we took our time here, sitting in the grass and eavesdropping on others.

From here it was a short drive up to Rocky Knob Campground where we had stayed before. The fog settled in for the night so unfortunately we couldn’t take in another sunset from the nearby overlook, but at least it didn’t get too cold throughout the night.